Raising the Bar
by TheEndlessHorizon
Summary: Gordon is mysteriously transported to an alternate universe: one where the Combine has replaced the air with toxic gases, where the oceans have been drained of their water, and where a man known only as the Consul speaks through orange-tinted screens. Rated T because I'm paranoid that way.
1. Prologue

**White Forest Base Hanger Bay**

* * *

To Gordon, it seemed the world had only started spiraling into darkness. He watched numbly as a sobbing Alyx Vance knelt over the dead body of her father, Eli, who had been killed by a Combine Advisor.

"No... Dad..."

"Don't... leave me..."

His mind tried to process the events that had just transpired in front of him, only minutes ago.

_Eli Vance was dead_. Eli Vance, former scientist of Black Mesa and a major leader of the Resistance, was dead. Eli Vance, one of his only friends at the Black Mesa Research Facility and a fellow coworker for so many years, was dead. Eli had survived the Portal Storms, the initial Seven-Hours War, and had lived as a member of the Resistance for over twenty years, even with the Combine wanting him dead.

They had achieved it in the end, hadn't they? Eli was dead. The Combine had made sure of that.

_No, wait a minute..._

Gordon thought back to White Forest, his talk with Eli, and the message that the man with the suit and briefcase had Alyx deliver to Eli.

_"Prepare for unforeseen consequences..."_

It was _him_. _It had to be him_. He must've knew about the talk, about what Gordon and Eli had been planning to do... and with a single stroke, Eli Vance had been silenced.

_Dead men tell no tales._

Alyx stopped moving, crouching beside her father's corpse. As if he had pressed an imaginary trigger, the world slowly faded into a monochrome darkness. A figure walked directly into his field of view, idly staring at a indeterminable spot behind Gordon's head.

"Doctor Freeeeeeeman... is it _really_, that, _time_...again?"

It was _him_.

Dressed in the same immaculate navy-blue suit and sporting the same tie as he had worn on that fateful day at Black Mesa, the Business Man grinned. He straitened his tie and, brushing his suit lapels, stared piercingly at Gordon.

"Really, _Missster_ Freeman. Rebelling, _against_ your... employersss, _I_ see. I'm not... _all_ that surprised, considering, _your_, line of... well, _work_."

Gordon glared defiantly at the Business Man, suddenly finding that he could not move at all.

_Of course._ He was trapped.

The bureaucrat smirked at him.

"Well, well, well... we'll see... about_ that!"_

Suddenly, the walls of the hangar, the helicopter, even Alyx and D0g fell away to be replaced by a dark landscape.

The sky seemed to be filled with dark-green clouds, and the seemingly unending landscape was a barren orange wasteland. A single corroded pipe ran along a set of raised train tracks, both going in either direction as far as the eye could see.

Gordon looked back, to find that even the Suited Man was shocked. He was swinging around wildly looking about.

The Man shouted in a loud, panicky voice that reassured Gordon that he himself wasn't the only one scared.

"What is the meaning of this? Who brought us here? Where are we?"

A green portal appeared with a flash of lightning, right where the Business Man was standing. The Man looked down.

"_No! _You can't _just teleport_ me! Do _you even _know _who_ I" - The rest of hs words were cut off as he disappeared in a flash of green light.

Gordon was alone, hovering a thousand feet above an alien landscape.

"Hmmm?"

A voice rang out.

Gordon started. It was the voice of the Suited Man!

"Well, well, well. Isn't that odd."

Gordon screamed inside his head.

_It's me, you sinister bureaucrat! Get me out of here!_

Gordon's vision began to darken slowly. Before he fully lost conciousness, however, he saw what appeared to be the Suited Man. Gordon desperately tried to reach out to him, but was unable to do so before his world went pitch black.

* * *

_So, that's the first chapter! Tell me what you people think! - Horizon_


	2. Opening Act

**Unknown**

* * *

The man didn't know how long he had slept... whether it had been minutes, hours, days... even weeks. He lay there, in the dark void, suspended in animation for all eternity. Or was it? There was silence. Then;

"Hello again, Mister Freeman. I do believe I've kept you waiting long enough."

Gordon's vision was blurry. He saw darkness and then... _light_, momentarily blinding his eyes before they adjusted. He was standing on the crest of a hill in a meadow, surrounded by rolling hills dotted with trees. A small river, clear water shimmering, stood out among the bright green grass; a majestic city could be seen in the background.

And then there where the _sounds_. The wind rustling leaves of nearby trees, birds chirping as they flew by, even the faint sound of traffic from the distant city.

Gordon stared. After so many days of constant fighting in City 17, he had almost nearly forgotten what normal life had been like. The comforts of waking up, drinking a coffee, and driving to work... not that he had done much of that. The Black Mesa Research Facility had had it's own Transit System, afterall. Gordon heard footsteps behind him and spun around.

It was the Suit Man. But different, somehow. Gordon looked closer. The Man seemed to be wearing the same suit, and carrying the same briefcase, but... his tie was different. Instead of its former bright red, the Business Man was sporting a dark purple tie.

The Man continued speaking.

"Not that the passage of time has had any meaning for you, but elsewhere it's a different story."

_What is he talking about? _Gordon thought_. What's so different about him?_

Then, it struck Gordon. The Man, even with his odd voice, was speaking normally. No inflections, odd voice raising or wierd pauses. In a way, it was even wierder with the Suited Man talking normally then with his "usual" voice pattern.

"I've been wondering how to explain what the world has become in your absence. I decided to simply... show you."

_Absence? How long have I been gone?_

Gordon experienced an odd feeling, like something had changed in the air.

The sky began to darken, clouds rushing in to fill the horizon. The grass and leaves started to pale, and the birdsong stopped. The river turned into a brook, then a small stream, then a trickle of water, then just small drops of water along the center of a shallow trench in the ground. The wind picked up, blowing leaves off of branches that had suddenly become dry and brittle.

"Don't blink or you will miss it. Sometimes everything can change... overnight."

As if the Business Man had snapped his fingers, there was a flash of light.

When it had stopped, everything had changed.

The Earth was barren; the sky had turned a murky grey. The stream had been turned into a small indentation in the ground and the trees had become twisted skeletons. Instead of birds, the familiar sound of Houndeye calls and Bullsquid shrieks filled the air. In the background, the city was a ruin. Explosions, each a ball of orange light, momentarily pierce the darkness.

Gordon looked around, shocked. _Was this the Seven Hour war? Why was the Man showing him this?_

There was the sound of rotors as a Combine Hunter-Chopper, dressed up in dark green camoflauge and sporting dual gatling guns from its wings, flew overhead.

"Don't be nervous, Mister Freeman. We're not really here... not yet, anyway."

Another flash.

Looking around, Gordon found himself in the same spot. The earth had become covered in orange-yellow sand, the trees were gone, and he heard the sound of what appeared to be insects chirping. The sky was a mass of dark-green clouds. The city had become a black, twisted shadow of its former self, its remaining buildings sagging towards the ground.

And then, in the center of the city, a beacon of light shone out. From the ground, a tall spiralling structure rose up, towering over the ruins of the city.

_The Citadel._

Yet, it wasn't; the shape seemed _off_, somehow, just like the Business Man.

A set of raised tracks extended from the city along with a long pipeline, gradually expanding until it vanished into the distant horizon. Gordon thought a bit. It was similar to what he had seen before!

Gorden heard a train.

A modified Razor Train, thicker and with compartments behind it, sliced into Gordon's view like a rusted knife. A red stripe of paint ran its way around the train and its compartments. It squealed to a halt, smoke rising from where the wheels had grinded at the tracks. A door opened in one of the compartments, an orange light glowing in the darkness.

The Business Man smirked as he gestured at the train, and suddenly, they were right infront of the open doorway.

"All aboard, Mister Freeman. Time waits for only one man."

Gordon found himself sliding inside, unable to move. The inside reminded him of the train that had carried him into City 17, yet there were subtle differences. Posters of a barely smiling man in a black uniform stared at him, plastered against the pale-green walls. Three passengers sat inside the compartment wearing dark, green, bulky suits with gray aprons, red bands with Combine writing on their arms. The scene was like a picture; there was no sound or movement.

"Well," the Suited Man said, smirking. "I believe this is my destination."

The Business Man began to fade away, receding into the corners of his vision before disappearing altogether. There was a bright flash of light, then the sound of a train whistle...

* * *

_There. Happy now? Now, have a hiatus. I'm sure you have better things to do then read this._


	3. Wasteland Train Inbound

**Wasteland Train**

* * *

Gordon felt as if he were floating an inch above the ground, then suddenly, with a jolt, the doors shut and the train started again.

He stumbled and nearly fell, grabbing on to a passenger's shoulder next to him for support.

The passenger in question, a young man of Asian descent, almost jumped out of his seat.

"Whoa," the man exclaimed, "you startled me there!"

The man leaned closer, looking at Gordon with an odd expression on his face. Then the expression became concern.

"Hey mister, you can't ride around like that! Where's your mask?" The man exclaimed, urgently. Gordon was confused.

_Mask? What mask?_

The only masks Gordon knew of that stood out prominently in his mind were the masks of the ghoulish Civil Protection and both their Soldier and Elite counterparts. The man continued on, heedless of whether or not Gordon was paying attention.

"...a _single_ step without it, and you'll be coughing up bloody foam! Here, I've got a spare; can't be too carefull..."

The man reached into one of the pockets of his uniform and pulled out what appeared to be a full-face transparent mask with a single gray filter jutting out. Gordon took it, staring at it. The man rubbed his forehead.

"I had one fail on me once, and nearly died because of it... I've carried an extra since."

Seeing Gordon's expression at his statement, he hurried on.

"_Look_, I hope I don't get in trouble for this, but the fact is, _you need it more than I do_."

Gordon pulled the strap back and put on the mask. Instantly, a taste of stale carbon and a brief moment that felt like suffocation, then... nothing. Gordon breathed in and out, getting used to his mask.

The man rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. Name's Samuel."

Gordon raised his eyebrow in question, nodding for Samuel to continue.

Well, Samuel G-11789RF. If you want to be specific, that is."

Gordon looked at the train car. It was similar to the one that the Suit Man had put him in at the start of his trek in City 17, with posters of a man similar to a balding Breen in a black unifom with medals.

Looking down, Gordon saw he was wearing the same suit as the passengers; how he had gone so long without noticing it eluded him.

Turning back to look outside the window, he saw a giant city in the distance, complete with a spiraling Citadel. The Citadel appeared to be disjointed and spired up into a point, spotlights turning to highlight black specks that could only be gunships and scanners.

Samuel saw Gordon peering out the window, and said, "Yeah. That's City 17."

_Wait, what?_ Gordon turned to look at Samuel. _That's City 17?_

Samuel continued on.

"The train's headed there, City 17. You know why the train was stopped, back there, in the middle of nowhere? Wierd... what would they have picked up there?"

Gordon continued to look outside, only hearing bits of Samuel's words.

"...authorities handed me and a couple of others notices that we were being moved to another city..."

Gordon felt tired suddenly, as if all those nights of sleep he had missed while fighting nonstop had finally caught up to him in full.

The surroundings began to blur, Gordon only hearing bits and pieces of Samuel's speech.

"...last transfer to City 49. Apparently, it's pretty much the same as 17 and 40. I've never been in the same zone for six months, though, so it feels they're all the same..."

Gordon felt woozy.

"..up by the Air Exchange, got a major power failure. Blamed it on the rebels, as usual..."

Samuel gradually fell silent, as well as any source of noise.

Then darkness.

* * *

_Sorry for the short chapter. As for this one... it'll all make sense in the course of- well, I'm really not at liberty to say_.


	4. Indefinite Hiatus Notice

**Hiatus Notice**

_Unfortunately, this story is on indefinite hiatus; For all intents and purposes, the story is complete. I've lost all my motivation to work on this, so don't expect anything new._

-TheEndlessHorizon


End file.
